To Feel Stuff (27 page)

And you said, “I think healthwise, we're two shitty candidates. But sure.”

At physical therapy, they had reiterated to me almost every hour that the mind is more powerful than the body. And obviously, the mind is what loves. I know that in the infirmary, there were definitely moments when I felt I could do anything and be anyone, and that these moments had everything to do with you.

Dr. Daly and I were discussing the dominance of the mind during one of our last sessions, and I told him, “Even though my limp's less and less noticeable to people on the outside, I'll always carry it with me.”

And Dr. Daly said, “Not scars of the body, but the scars of the soul. I'm familiar with those.”

 

While I was getting ready for the dance, you were napping. I'd forgotten what wearing slacks felt like. On the way out of the infirmary, I bent over our bed and whispered to you, “I love you, baby.” Your hair smelled like a combination of rose and orange. You didn't wake up.

Sarah was at the desk eating a microwave dinner, and as soon as she saw me she rolled her chair backward and looked me up and down. She told me that I cleaned up nice.

I said, “I do, don't I?” but I wasn't saying that in a major dickhead way. It more leaked out from surprise at being reminded of information I felt like I'd misplaced. I glanced down at myself, checking out the parts that I could. I remember putting my hands in my pockets and bouncing them there because I was enjoying the feel of the fabric on my legs.

“Tonight, Sarah, I feel really great,” I said.

“You've done it,” she said, but not with that much excitement. She blew on a piece of pork and put it in her mouth. “Go out into the world. And please try to do something worthwhile with yourself.”

“But tonight comes first before I tackle the world,” I joked. “Tonight I'm going to dance.” I held out my arms to show her. “I'm leaving the crutches at home.”

“You think you're ready?”

“I have no doubt.”

“You're going to have to be careful and take your steps slowly,” Sarah said. I took a few steps forward and backward to show her I was doing all right. And then, I don't know if I was really conscious of the transition, but my steps turned into hops, and in a few seconds my arms were out and rounded like I was holding a ghost girl. I told her, “Like riding a bicycle. I'm even going to take the stairs.”

“No. Just take the elevator, okay?” she said.

“I'm taking the stairs.”

Sarah put down her fork and told me that if I was going to be so stubborn she wouldn't try to stop me, but she was going to help.

So I put out my hand and said, “There's no need. Look.” I went down the hall to the stairs and took my first step down. Before I took another, I turned around and asked, “Are you going to be here tomorrow?”

She'd be gone by the time I came back the next day to get my stuff, so we said our good-byes then. She came over to me and put out her hand. “It's been good knowing you.” We shook. “Thanks for taking such great care of me.”

“Well, it's my job,” she said.

And I said, “Even so. Thanks.”

I could feel her eyes on my back while I was taking those initial stairs. I was traveling carefully, step by step, but I didn't hold the rail. I kept my hands in my pockets. Downstairs the lamps were off, but the moon was huge that night, and I began this game of stepping only in squares of light on the floor. And here's a hugely dorky admission: I was pretending that I was Michael Jackson in the “Billie Jean” video, and that my feet were making every spot they touched glow.

The air outside was so vacation-like—a real kind of warm, not the heater kind of warm that we were so used to—that when I reached the front doors, I stopped to bask in it. My cab was waiting at the curb. I guess the driver thought that I was unable to go any farther, so he started to walk toward me.

“Do you need some help?” he called out.

“Do I look like I need help?” I wondered out loud. I wasn't asking that like he'd rubbed me the wrong way, but like I needed to know if a layperson could tell that I hadn't been walking for months.

Probably thinking he'd insulted me, the driver looked down and told me, “No, you look fine.”

I even managed to get into the cab myself, El.

When we got to the Biltmore driveway, I saw my dad inside through the glass doors. He was sitting in a chair near the elevator. He hadn't spotted me yet, so I jogged over to the landing. I took the first five steps ducking down. Right before I put my foot on the sixth, I casually said, “Hi. Nice night, huh?”

My dad turned his head, and when I knew he'd recognized me, I took that last step. I practically jumped up it. He also jumped up and his smile was so genuine, so
rare,
and I think he didn't know what to say because all he came up with was “Welcome back!”

We hugged tightly and I asked, “Welcome back?”

“It just leaped into my mind,” he told me.

“Chess!” my mom called, stepping out of the elevator. We also hugged, and afterward she held my shoulders and tilted me away from her, like she wanted to get a clear view of my knees, so she could believe they were healing. She told me I looked wonderful, and I just said thank you, thank you, thank you.

We got into another cab, and as we went up College Hill, I felt like our moods were following that same incline. From a block away we could see the front lawn lit by hundreds of lanterns dangling from wires. The school looked like a yacht, swaying with all these carefree, euphoric people on board. The rest of the hill was dark, like it was the surrounding ocean. The music filled the car and, even though I know this is a dangerous thing to refer to, I'm just going to do it and say my soul.

The dance was so crowded that it took us thirty minutes to get from the front to the back lawn. As we made our way through the mob, my dad and mom kept turning around to make sure that I was still standing. I kept flashing them the A-OK sign.

In front of Faunce, Tyler Mandrake grabbed onto my back and yelled, "You are
it
!” He was in the Bear Necessities with me.

Tyler was really drunk, so he just kept rambling. “The guest of honor. We've all been waiting for you. I swear, I'm going to go up and tell the band that they need to play something. How about ‘Tarzan Boy,' because you're a warrior, Chess, a fucking warrior.” (I swear, this is the shit he was saying.) “We've missed you; no one does your part right. We tried a freshman and he sucked cock. Your legs work now, huh? You warrior. There's no one I could be more happy to see right now than you, Chess Hunter, than you.” He just wouldn't stop talking, but it was nice. It was really nice.

Tyler told me that the guys were going to sing later in front of Manning, and he asked me if I'd join them.

“Yeah. I'll sing,” I said. And, El, I have to admit that I was instantly, disproportionately excited, like the singing had already begun.

When my parents and I got to Lincoln Field, we saw Marna and David standing with their parents next to the statue of Marcus Aurelius. Marna's dad was trying to get her to swing dance with him, but she would only let him have her arms. David was smoking and talking with his dad, who was also smoking. David's mom was talking into Marna's mom's ear to make herself heard, and we heard David burst out, “Why don't you just nibble on her ear, Mom?”

David's mom came up from Marna's mom's ear and asked, “What'd you say, David?” in her thick Israeli accent. “Why don't you just go ahead and eat her?”

“What are you talking about?” She pointed to Marna's mom in confusion while searching David for answers. “Janette?”

“Yes, Janette. You're standing on top of her. I'm sure she finds it very uncomfortable and weird. You've got to give people space, Mom, because people are mammals, meaning that we require air to breathe—”

“Oh, David, please,” said Marna's mom, rolling her eyes but giggling, “I'm fine. Leave her alone.”

Right then everyone discovered us standing behind them and their faces lit up. “Chester! Olivia!” exclaimed David's mom as soon as she saw my parents. “It's been such a long time!” My mom and dad split and joined their respective sexes, and they were like two doors swinging open, suddenly revealing me. “Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” Marna said.

“Hey,” David said.

I don't know where you went the morning the infirmary discharged David. I think you were maybe at the hospital. Anyway, David and I had promised each other that we'd stay in better touch, but we hadn't talked since February.

That night, though, when I was reunited with my old friends, the three of us studied each other and courtesy seemed like the stupidest route to take. How do I explain it to you? Okay, it felt like time was pressing onward. Urgently. And it was erasing past disappointments and heartbreak. It was like that moment was burning so bright that everything before and after it was forced to dim, and that's as close as I can get to describing how much energy that one moment took up without taking your arm and squeezing it.

We grabbed cups of wine from the passing server and raised them to the future without verbalizing a toast. And with that gesture, I instantly felt the promise of movement. And I felt time rushing forward (like it was a solid) and taking us along with it, while everything in the past grew darker and darker behind my back.

The Journal of Parapsychology October 2004

 

The night of the campus dance, I was about to enter through the Van Wickle gates when I saw E approaching. Initially, I believed that she was an apparition born of my own psyche. I had spent so much of my time thinking about her and her case that I wondered if I was projecting her image onto another student's body. There was no reason that she would be walking down the middle of the street by herself.

As she came closer, however, I confirmed that it was, indeed, E.

She was wearing a strapless green party dress that she must have been hoarding since she arrived at school, and I noticed her collarbones immediately. Without fabric covering them, their sharpness was alarming.

She was leaning on a cane for support.

When E reached me, I asked her what she was doing outside of the infirmary, and she responded that she was going to surprise C at the dance. She refused my offer to accompany her across the lawn, saying that the cane was “help enough.”

Then E proceeded to walk up to a table where a volunteer was collecting tickets. “One ticket, please,” she told him.

The man patted the top of his metal cash box. “We don't sell tickets, we take them. They had to be purchased in advance.”

“Please?” she asked. I watched as E stepped around to the side of the table so that the man could have a clear look at her cane. I was too fascinated by her behavior to step in and assist her in gaining entry to the dance.

The volunteer, obviously surprised to discover that this young woman was dependent on a cane, immediately softened. I believe that E, seeing this, began to make the arm that was clutching the cane shake for effect.

“I don't take up much space,” she said, staring at him. I almost laughed at her performance.

“And get inside you shall!” the volunteer said, guiding E around the table and personally escorting her into the dance. Once beyond the gates, she waved and disappeared into the throngs.

The next morning the tape arrived at eight o'clock. Within a half hour, I received a phone call that set me racing back to her side.

From The Desk of Chester Hunter III

 

Marna began trying to work me back into their lives. It was very sweet to watch. She touched David's thigh and said, “He has, like, three interviews with different agencies out there—”

“Four,” David corrected.

“Impressive.” I nodded to let them know that I was up for all of the reconnecting.

“And it's pretty much guaranteed that I'm going to be working for a nonprofit in the city,” Marna continued. “They're just figuring out salary right now, but what we do is find new-looking, professional clothes for homeless people and teach them how to wear them confidently. Then we set up job interviews.”

“Just tell him the name,” David said.

“Okay, so it's called Person-All Style,” Marna apologized. “Which I know is a stupid name, but—”

David and I laughed in unison. I mean that our actual pattern of laugh-sounds was in unison, which I found amazing, considering that there've got to be billions of different laughs in the world.

There was a group of seniors dancing in a circle near us, veering a little too close to David's sphere of personal space. A girl's elbow eventually brushed up against his back, so he turned around, basically inserting himself into the ring, and said, “If you want to dance with me, guys, you should just ask instead of trying to get me to notice you. You don't have to be so immature about it”

Everyone in that circle gaped at him and began backing up toward the left. I just remember thinking, “That's my David.”

He finished his drink in one swig and then threw up his arm in exasperation. I remember watching a last drop of wine going flying through the sky. When I'm drunk—and how weird it is to realize that you've never even seen me drunk—I get fascinated by the smallest images. “No one has any integrity anymore,” he said. “Hey, speaking of, did you hear that the police think they've caught the guys who did your knees and my head?”

“What do you mean? When did that happen?” I asked.

“This morning. It hasn't been released to the public yet, but they called me. They probably didn't know how to reach you. Get this—it turns out that it was a group of bullshit semiotics kids doing these attacks as part of a ‘piece.' That's what they called it—‘a piece.' What incredible assholes, right?”